Gluconic acid, the oxidation product of glucose, is a mild neither caustic nor corrosive, non toxic and readily biodegradable organic acid of great interest for many applications. As a multifunctional carbonic acid belonging to the bulk chemicals and due to its physiological and chemical characteristics, gluconic acid itself, its salts (e.g. alkali metal salts, in especially sodium gluconate) and the gluconolactone form have found extensively versatile uses in the chemical, pharmaceutical, food, construction and other industries. Present review article presents the comprehensive information of patent bibliography for the production of gluconic acid and compares the advantages and disadvantages of known processes. Numerous manufacturing processes are described in the international bibliography and patent literature of the last 100 years for the production of gluconic acid from glucose, including chemical and electrochemical catalysis, enzymatic biocatalysis by free or immobilized enzymes in specialized enzyme bioreactors as well as discontinuous and continuous fermentation processes using free growing or immobilized cells of various microorganisms, including bacteria, yeast-like fungi and fungi. Alternatively, new superior fermentation processes have been developed and extensively described for the continuous and discontinuous production of gluconic acid by isolated strains of yeast-like mold Aureobasidium pullulans, offering numerous advantages over the traditional discontinuous fungi processes. © 2007 Bentham Science Publishers Ltd.
